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After living in Korea for shy a decade, I find myself back in England, penalized for my turned back, awaiting a move to Exeter, where I will study an MA in English, with focus on environmental studies. These days I am reading inveterately, owing to my no longer living without the means to buy books & books & books. My reading interest lie in contemporary philosophy, ecology, ecological philosophy, object orientated ontology & speculative realism. These ideas are leaching into my poetry & essays.

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I regard the selfie – a consequence of a development in (marketed) technology – as living proof of what Stockhausen said (obviously about music): “New methods change the experience, and new experiences change man.”

Very much in character for the protagonist, Daniel: and that idea of passivity, for me, is very true. All these phone apps, including the usual suspects, Instagram, Facebook, etc “drive engagement,” I find it annoying, partly because it is a passive pointless engagement with a piece of software.

A big question I reckon, Daniel. For me, we need software, it’s a lifesaver in many ways. I could suggest government intervention, laws to stop the abuse of various kinds that goes on. But I think that’s a trap, we’d wind up losing freedoms and gain very little.

I never thought about its lifesaving properties. I suppose it is used for all manner of things out of sight but nevertheless affecting the daily mechanisms that govern us: hospitals, engineering, energy, safety. Any particular examples of where it has an invaluable effect on society? I think you understand this all better than me. I am no uninterested though.

Well, I suppose a small example I’m very close to because of my work is as you mention, hospitals. Doctors can still use a stethoscope but a lot of other stuff is now software-dependent. In emergency wards, patients can come in with seizures, which may be missed. In various emergency departments in the US now, when relevant EEG is recorded as a matter of course, and reviewed by experts elsewhere. The intervening steps include fairly sophisticated software. Diagnosis and treatment saves lives.

“ There, I am desperately free and naive; but knowing this oh dear happiness, dear misery; there is no distinctive sign except that one tearing one’s heart, and a smile destined to nobody(...)" E.Stachura